Pentium Hyperthreading Technology and Stability

[Brad Higerd]

To anyone who may have specific knowledge on the P4 with HT technology, do you know how I can overcome the stability issues that are somewhat unresolved with the P4c series chips?

This is my system:

2.8 GHz P4c 800MHz FSB
ABIT IC7 Motherboard
(1 Gig total) 512 Mb paired Cosair Highspeed RAM (400MHz)
Windows XP
Vegas 3.0c
and lots of other insignificant stuff

The latest BIOS have been flashed, and everything has been updated. What can I do to keep my system from periodically rebooting?

Thanks,

Brad

[Chris Coen]

Probably unrelated, but make sure that you don't have any IRQ conflicts or shared IRQ resources for your PCI and AGP devices. Disable in the BIOS any ports not in use (like USB, serial, parallel, ect...) to free up additional IRQ resources.

I was having random reboots when I was recording multi-track audio in Pro Tools until I got my IRQ's under control.

~Hope this helps.

[Elmar Tewes]

i have a p4 3,06 HT and it's quite stable. it reboots from time to time too but it isn't that often. i have that from time to time when i capture something with scenalyzer

[Harry Settle]

Say, thanks for the warning! I am on the hunt for a new system, and had been looking at the P4 3ghz, with 1 gig ram in Gateway, Dell, Compaq etc. . . I guess I'll be rethinking. I hate to stick with my old athlon 900, but, until I find a suitable, stable, solution. . . I've spent too much time and money getting my current stable system, to start over again.

[Brad Higerd]

Harry,

There is good and bad with just about every option in life, and the P4 with HT technology is very much included in this generalization. While I have taken a significant amount of time building and setting up this system (with a lot of help from gifted friends), it can render like nothing I have ever seen. I was working with some footage this evenning, and even after adding several video fx's and transitions, this machine could render approximately 40-45 frames per second. The reboot problem may have been resolved with some changes tonight to my system's BIOS.

New technology can have it's fair share of problems, but the P4 HT processor is very well suited for video work. I do not regret this upgrade.

If you go this route and need some assistance, just email me, and I'll help you troubleshoot.

Brad

[Rob Lohman]

What kind of power supply do you have? Some instabalities might
be due to this.... Or a broken fan.

[Brad Higerd]

Rob, good observation. However, I'm running on a stable 400 watt power supply and the fans all look good (any power instability is a result of our local electricity provider and is somewhat regulated by a standard APC battery backup).

I think the problem was in the BIOS default settings. The default allowed for computer controlled variability with the FSB frequency, DRAM to CPU timing ratios, AGP and PCI frequency as well as several other key parameters. Since going in and setting everything manually, I have not had any problems. My conclusion (for the moment) is that computers are just not ready to run themselves - not yet anyway.

My other conclusion, this HT technology is great for all those who hate to wait for rendering. Even my impatient side is impressed to watch video render through the preview window in high speed.

[Nigel Moore]

But is that the HT or the speed of the processor? Have you tried disabling HT in BIOS and running the same renders?

I'm just curious as to what real difference HT actually makes.

[Brad Higerd]

Nigel, I had the same question when we built the system.

The fact that the processor runs at 2.8 GHz prior to our future overclocking efforts has a big part to play in the short render times. But to answer you, yes HT does make a difference (at least in a NLE that supports dual processor performance). To actually quantify that difference would be difficult, but estimating from the increased processor usage (nearly 20% increase) and the reduced render time (about the same 20%), I tend to believe that it is significant. I would like to be able to post accurate numbers, but we have not had a chance to do any real benchmark testing.

Brad

[Nigel Moore]

This is interesting, Brad, since I'm building a new edit box, and am considering the value of HT. It would be nice to have some render times from the same project rendered with and without HT enabled in the BIOS. That way, the only difference between the two would, theoretically, be the impact of the 'virtual' second CPU.

[Hugh DiMauro]

For what it's worth, I have the Gateway 700 XL Digital FilmMaker package and it is awesome. Stable, fast and a dream to use with vegas 4.0. I have mine configured for dual monitors. What a convenience tool. Give the Gateway serious consideration. I used an HP Pavilion before but I only had a 256 mghz bus speed which made my monitor playback jittery.

[Tim Borek]

<<<-- Originally posted by Brad Higerd : To anyone who may have specific knowledge on the P4 with HT technology, do you know how I can overcome the stability issues that are somewhat unresolved with the P4c series chips?

The latest BIOS have been flashed, and everything has been updated. What can I do to keep my system from periodically rebooting?

Thanks,

Brad -->>>
Brad,

I know this is an old thread, but I am having the same problem with my [BRAND NEW!] custom Pentium 4 2.8C system:

2 x 256MB DDR400 (either Kingston ValuRam or generic)
Foxconn 865A01-G-6EKRS motherboard (Intel 865G chipset)
2 x 120GB Western Digital SATA hard drives (8MB buffer)
Windows XP Home Ed., Service Pack 1a
Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.5 VE (soon upgrading to version 7.01, once the crashes stop -- IF I can get them to stop)
eVGA GeForce FX5200 dual-display video, 128MB (latest Nvidia drivers 5.6.7.2)
350W power supply in CodeGen L-6102 case

After your system reboots, do you receive any "serious error" or "serious problem" message upon startup? Did you have any warning or did your monitor just go black like mine? You can stop the rebooting by right-clicking My Computer and then clicking Properties, the Advanced tab, Startup and Recovery, and then unchecking "Automatically reboot." That wont' stop the errors, but it will display messages to help you troubleshoot the problem. Was your problem ever resolved?

After troubleshooting several days and losing valuable editing time, I gave up and took the machine back to the PC Club franchise that assembled it. Fool that I am, I kept the unstable machine past the store's 7-day refund period, so now the best I can hope for is an obvious hardware failure so the offending component can be replaced under warranty.

The techician today said he doesn't understand why I'm experiencing Windows errors even though he did a 20-hour burn in after building the system. Obviously, "buring in" isn't good enough and doesn't replace real-world use. He suspects defective or incompatible RAM modules. I hope that's all that is causing the problem.

Good luck to you!

[Lars Siden]

Hi Brad,

I use several HT computers - many of the overclocke - like this one, a 3.2ghz running 3.5ghz - and I never have any problems.

I recently bought a new motherboard, a MSI Neo2 Pro FisR - and during my hunt for the new mobo I read some articled about the IC7 mb - some of them having stability problems.

The most common reason for self-rebooting is memory timing. Try to set your BIOS options more conservative.

One other thing strikes me: Does the computer reboot during videorender or other CPU intensive work? If so - it could be heat related - many mother motherboards shutsdown/reboots if the CPU gets too warm.

Good luck!

// Lazze

[Tim Borek]

<<<-- Originally posted by Lars Siden : Hi Brad,

The most common reason for self-rebooting is memory timing. Try to set your BIOS options more conservative.

One other thing strikes me: Does the computer reboot during videorender or other CPU intensive work? If so - it could be heat related - many mother motherboards shutsdown/reboots if the CPU gets too warm.

Good luck!

// Lazze -->>>

I don't know if you were talking to me or Brad, but when it was working, my PC would usually render without problems. My first editing project on the new PC went fairly well, but a few days later the restarting/crashing accelerrated from daily to about twice per hour under normal Windows usage; something as simple as changing a Control Panel option could cause an error that reboots the PC. I could do nothing at all, or something as simple as loading a CD into my CD-ROM drive. It seems to happen completely at random. Sickening!

[Mike Rehmus]

I have a non-HT P4 system that does this. My 3.2 Ghz P4 HT system is rock solid with one exception. If I load a previously written rewritable DVD into the Sony burner, it will probably cause a reboot.

But other than that, there are absolutely no stability problems and with the RT system (Canopus DVRexRT) and Edius, it really screams.

ASUS P4C800E-Deluxe motherboard.